


All That Matters

by Blake_Belladonna_Defence_Force, TophsLegacy



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/F, Post-Volume 3 (RWBY), Yangst, she's sad guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:35:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24482128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blake_Belladonna_Defence_Force/pseuds/Blake_Belladonna_Defence_Force, https://archiveofourown.org/users/TophsLegacy/pseuds/TophsLegacy
Summary: TWs: Depression, PTSDRosychallengedBlake_Belladonna_Defence_Forceto write them an angst fic in exchange for their silence on cursed content for 5 months. Defence and I ended up co-writing the piece for maximum suffering.
Comments: 19
Kudos: 101





	All That Matters

**Author's Note:**

  * For [imaderice](https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaderice/gifts).



Time stopped meaning anything when she woke up after the fall. 

Why should it mean anything when she’d lost everything. The life she knew was gone. Beacon was infested with Grimm. Her chances of being a huntress were squandered, forgotten somewhere on the school grounds along with her arm, and her pride. 

Her team was scattered, Ruby looked at her with pity and everyone else had proven her right, once again, that people do not stay. 

At least...not for Yang. 

She didn’t know how many days had passed since she woke up to the familiar four walls of her childhood bedroom. It could have been days or weeks, but it didn’t matter. Her mind was numb and her limbs, the ones she still had, felt heavy. The fog of consciousness was spent laying on her back, staring at the blank ceiling, a reflection of her future. 

The little energy she could muster was spent using the restroom and picking at the food left by her door. Anything she had left after that was used to fend off the pleas to leave her room, she snapped enough times that they’d learned to just leave her be. 

_Leave. Her._ It was all she could rely on now. 

The little sleep she did manage to get was always fitful, restless; always ended in a wash of red, and gasp of air as she shot up in her bed. A cruel reminder that she still had to keep breathing. It was always in the dead of night that she’d crack, break, shatter into unrecognizable pieces. She let the tears fall as she muffled choked sobs into her pillow, all while wondering what was _so fucking wrong_ with her that made people leave. 

As time went on and sleep came less and less, she began to see a black shadow in the corner of her vision, haunting her. Taunting her. Reminding her of the man that she failed to stop. Reminding her of the woman that ran. Always making her remember, never leaving. How cruel that the only things that wouldn’t leave her side were the demons that tore at her from the inside out. 

It was so constant that she thought she was losing her mind, that maybe she’d lost it already and she’s just now catching up. This wasn’t the first time she’d seen things, at least back then she was sure she knew the truth. _So either you’re lying or you’re crazy._

Qrow’s gruff voice scratched in her ears. There was no one left to tell her what was real and what wasn’t. Even if there was someone she could trust with this, she was afraid. She hated being afraid, but she was, because if she’d lost her grip on reality before the fall - that means that Blake might not have had the chance to run at all. 

The thought of losing her sanity should put her on edge, but it just makes her more numb. The only thing she could feel was the pain. Her arm burned, stinging, making her grit her teeth for the first time in a very long time. She gripped the muscle, trying to squeeze the pain out and failing. Another ripple shoots through her nerves making her whole body clench. She writhed on the bed in silence. 

There was no point in making sound for the ghosts that haunted her.

Hours later, or maybe it was days, she really couldn’t tell; she was just so exhausted. She hung her head limply off the side of her bed, hair grazing the carpet as she looked at the same walls that watched her fall apart. The blood started to pool around her brain, a pressure expanding against her skull, it pushed at the backs of her eyes. Her body started to tingle and _finally_ she felt something other than the pain, other than numb. 

The blood seeped out of her toes, now icy and stiff. The pressure against her eyes and in the bridge of her nose grew heavy, leaded. She fought her eyelids when they dared to try to close, static started to cross her vision and she took a deep breath. Reveling in a sensation that, for once, wasn’t more of the same. 

The darkness started to pull her in, right at the edge of consciousness, _that_ was when she saw her. Standing in the middle of her bedroom… was Blake Belladonna. 

_Blake._ Yang felt something in her chest stir for the first time since she’d hidden herself away. As her vision turned black, she reached out her hand and fell to the floor. 

When Yang awoke, she found herself lying in a crumpled heap next to her bed. She winced as the muscles she tried to unwind stung with atrophy. Slowly, she climbed to shaky feet and let out a small noise of pain. She froze when a featherlight touch met her right shoulder, a gentle caress slid down to her bicep, soothing the ache and replacing it with a warmth she hadn’t felt since... Yang hesitantly opened her eyes and gasped.

Blake stood before her, clear as day, she felt like the realist thing in the room. Her amber eyes clouded with agony, her tear-stained cheeks strained against the noiseless sobs she held in with her hand clenched over her lips. 

But that’s the problem with her own feelings, Yang thought to herself. It doesn’t matter if she’s real, Yang’s heart aches in her chest just the same. The one thing she hadn’t had to live through after the fall was seeing how Blake felt. She wondered in her darkest moments in the dead of night, when her nerves were raw with honesty, vulnerability - did Blake mourn too? 

Yang’s tears began to fall, giving way to ugly, heaving sobs as Blake looked at her with the gaze of a broken woman, as her touch lingered against Yang’s skin. She moved forward, then, to lean against Blake. To close the small gap that was really an immeasurable chasm, to hope she could just believe this one lie. To be selfish for the first time in her life, she needed this. She needed Blake, to cry into her shoulder, to feel close to her. To hear her. To be held by her.

But as leaning turned into falling, Blake faded away. Returning to shadow as Yang’s head struck the wall, a small cry left her as she slumped to the floor, feeling something warm and thick start to trickle down her forehead. She heard muffled footsteps and the creak of her door, Ruby let out a small gasp as she skidded to a halt in front of her. Ruby’s eyes darted anxiously between the large dent in the drywall and the blood dripping from Yang’s eyebrow. 

She couldn’t pull herself back together, she couldn’t reassure Ruby that everything was okay, that wasn’t one of the lies she wanted to believe. 

Ruby sat on the floor, dragging Yang’s shoulders into her lap and cradling her while she dabbed at the blood with her sleeve. She asked how it happened, why it happened, she asked if Yang was okay, each question more desperate than the last. 

But Yang couldn’t answer her. Her gaze was fixed on the ceiling, unwavering, while tears streamed silently down stoney cheeks. Expressionless, descending back into the numb. Her mind was still snared by the look in Blake’s eyes. By how fast she was willing to fall apart for the slightest bit of her comfort. 

They started to rock back and forth, making her realize how her body shook in Ruby’s arms. The lullaby she sang was one Yang had sung to her when they were young. When she was strong. When she was still whole. 

Once her tears dried up and her body stilled, Ruby all but lifted her into bed. Tucking her under the covers and leaving a single kiss on her forehead, just like Yang used to do for her. How Ruby had grown in the midst of Yang losing herself. Ruby paused as she reached the door, whispering a broken ‘I love you’ as she turned the knob. 

It pricked at the corners of Yang’s tear swollen eyes, but the sting didn’t move her to speak the words back. She wasn’t ready. 

She might be ready someday. There could be a time when sleep comes easier. When her arm doesn’t burn and her mind doesn’t soak in numb agony. When the people who left her don’t haunt her the way they do now. But someday isn’t today. 

She slowly blinked against dry, puffy eyes. She didn’t know how long she’d lay awake tonight, but she knew what would consume her thoughts. The same things that had since she’d woken up with a wrapped arm and a missing partner. She could never forget those amber eyes. 

The lie she wanted to believe was that she could look into Blake’s eyes again someday, take whatever pride she could scrape together, and hope she doesn’t destroy it.


End file.
